Women explain why they believe Joe Biden is better than Donald Trump on abortion access
The devastation did not end when Texas resident Amanda Zurawski's water broke at 18 weeks and she learned the daughter that she'd so looked forward to welcoming would not survive.
Texas' abortion trigger law, a near-total ban that took effect in the summer of 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, ended up nearly killing Zurawski, who was in Phoenix on Thursday afternoon as part of a President Joe Biden reelection campaign event that focused on reproductive rights.
Though Zurawski's baby had no chance of surviving after her water broke, doctors refused to induce labor because the baby still had a heartbeat and they did not want to violate the state's abortion law.
So Zurawski went home for three days, developed a bacterial infection and nearly died from septic shock. Damage from the infection means she will need a surrogate in order to have children, she said.
If Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is elected to the White House again, "what happened to me will be the norm," she said.
Democrats’ national campaign operations have targeted vulnerable Republicans on abortion access, expecting it will boost Democratic turnout in this year’s elections.
Zurawski is traveling across the country to share her story as part of the Biden campaign efforts, along with Kaitlyn Joshua, a Louisiana resident who was turned away from two different emergency departments after she experienced a miscarriage at 11 weeks.
Louisiana, like Texas, has an abortion trigger law that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The Louisiana law prohibits abortion at all stages of pregnancy, except to save the life of the pregnant person.
On Thursday the Louisiana state Legislature took another step to restrict reproductive rights by passing a bill to reclassify two abortion-inducing drugs as dangerous substances, the Associated Press reported.
Joshua said Louisiana is an example of why leaving the authority over abortion access to states is not working and why she is urging voters to reelect Biden, who supporters say will use whatever authority he has to ensure access to reproductive care, including abortions and contraception.
In a platform released in April, Trump called for state-level laws on the issue rather than a national one, though he has suggested his support for a national law in the past.
Trump has "long been consistent in supporting the rights of states to make decisions on abortion," Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign's national press secretary, wrote Thursday in an email.
"Joe Biden and the Democrats are radically out of touch with the majority of Americans in their support for abortion up until birth and even after birth, and forcing taxpayers to fund it," she wrote.
Republican National Committee spokesperson Rachel Lee wrote in an email that "try and lie as he might, Dishonest Joe is as extreme as they come on abortion."
Thursday's Biden campaign event at downtown Phoenix's Crescent Ballroom, which also included testimony from Chandler resident and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Joanna Sweatt, reiterated Biden’s campaign trail reminder that Trump, by appointing Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, helped enable the abortion restrictions in Arizona.
Some Arizonans "think we're OK and we're not," Sweatt said of Arizona's laws on abortion. While an 1864 near-total ban, upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court on April 9, was recently repealed, there's still a chance the law could take effect this year depending on what happens with court challenges.
And under Trump, "we are in danger" because of the possibility he will further strip reproductive rights from all Americans, Sweatt and other supporters said.
Speakers at the event noted that Arizonans are already living under a restrictive abortion law, which allows abortions up to 15 weeks of gestation with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Prior to September 2022, abortions in the state had been legal up until fetal viability, the point at which a fetus would have a significant chance of surviving outside the womb absent extraordinary measures. Fetal viability is typically at about 23 weeks or 24 weeks of gestation.
The number of abortions performed in Arizona declined from 13,998 in 2021 to 11,530 in 2022, a drop of about 18%, the most recent state abortion report from the Arizona Department of Health Services says.
A proposed constitutional amendment, called the Arizona Abortion Access Act, is expected to appear on the November general election ballot. It would create a "fundamental right" to obtain an abortion anytime before viability. The campaign against the ballot initiative is called "It Goes Too Far." Opponents say the language in the initiative is vague and overly broad.
"It feels like November is a long time away," Zurawski said. "I just don't want to lose momentum. We cannot let people forget."
Still possible: Abortions may continue until June 8, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes tells providers
Republic reporter Laura Gersony contributed to this article.
Reach health care reporter Stephanie Innes at Stephanie.Innes@gannett.com or follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @stephanieinnes.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Women at Phoenix Biden campaign event target Trump on abortion access
